


Home Is Not a Place

by lamerezouille



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 08:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1681082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamerezouille/pseuds/lamerezouille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valiant’s last thoughts before dying were for the Western Isles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Is Not a Place

Valiant had never even been to the Western Isles. He’d been knighted in the name of their Lord, yes, and if he’d survived a bit longer he even would have had a chance to _become_ their Lord, perhaps, but that was no longer neither here nor there.

He dreamed of the Western Isles, though. He dreamed of them often. He dreamed of green pastures and unforgiving cliffs, of azure sea and fresh wind. Those were all things he’d never seen, but his mother had talked about them often enough, his sister had given them life on her canvas often enough.

It was his sister and her paintings that had given Valiant the ideas for the live snakes on his shield. Now that these monsters were gone and that he was about to be gone, too, he felt a pang of regret of not having asked the sorcerer to animate one of his sister’s pictures before Valiant killed him.

Valiant pushed the thought away from his mind. He decided not to think of all the people he’d killed in his life—decided not to make regret the last feeling he’d ever feel. He thought about the Western Isles, of its children and women and elderlies, all these people he didn’t have to want to please anymore. All these people he’d never met.

He thought about all these responsibilities he’d never have to bear, and he felt _relief_ to be killed so soon.

The Western Isles were his family’s home, but they’d never managed to go back there. Valiant had understood that from a young age: he’d understood that being noble wasn’t the same as being rich, and that one needed a lot of gold to set sail for such a long voyage.

He understood that gold was difficult to earn when you were strangers in a strange land, with no man and two children. He understood that _he_ was to be the gold-earner of the family. He understood that he had no other skill than sword fighting to sell for it. He understood that it was always easier to win whilst cheating.

Valiant spent his whole life trying to go back to the Western Isles, even after his mother died, even after all was left of his sister were a few green stains on a white tunic. Valiant spent his whole life failing.

Being champion of Camelot would have meant victory. It would have meant enough gold for the travel. It might even have meant someone to go back home with. It mostly would have meant not being worthy.

Valiant didn’t think he’d been worthy of them for a long time—if he’d ever been. But he didn’t care being worthy anymore, he didn’t care about owning lands and having people sworn to him. All he cared about were the green pastures and the unforgiving cliffs his mother had told him about, the azure sea and the fresh wind his sister had immortalized in her art.

His last thoughts before dying were for these unattainable Isles and the unshakeable knowledge that even if heaven was made of them, that wasn’t where he was headed anyway.


End file.
